Disk drives are commonly used to store data in computers, databases, digital video records, and other devices. A disk drive comprises a rotating magnetic disk and a head actuated over the disk to magnetically write data to and read data from the disk. The disk drive may write data to and read data from the disk in response to write/read commands from a host that used the disk drive for data storage. When the disk drive receives a force unit access write command it writes force unit access write data directly to the disk instead of just a cache before it completes the command to the host. In the case of shingled magnetic recording, metadata corresponding to the force unit access write data will also typically be written to the disk. This can cause a large accumulation of metadata in the disk. This can be undesirable because the metadata can take up space which could be used for storage of valid data.